Here, as everywhere, our difficulties began and ended with questions respecting the customs. It had been said, all along, that with the left bank of the Murgab Afghanistan began, and that there the slave tax would cease to be exacted. It was a grievous mistake. The Khan of the Djemshidi, who treated in person with the Kervanbashi concerning the taxes, exacted more for goods, cattle, and slaves than the former claimants, and when the tariff was made known, the consternation, and with many the lamentation, knew no bounds. He even forced the Hadjis to pay two francs per ass--an extraordinary charge for all, but for me a very grievous one. But the greatest hardship was that which befell an Indian, who had purchased some loads of aniseed in Maymene for thirty Tenghe. The carriage to Herat cost him twenty Tenghes per load. He had also, up to this point, paid eleven Tenghes for customs, and now he was to pay thirty more, making for expenses about sixty-one Tenghes. The enormous duties imposed upon the {261} merchant, and with the authority of a sort of law, are a positive hindrance to all commercial transactions; and from the dreadfully tyrannical use made of their power by the princes, the inhabitants are prevented from profiting by the riches of nature that often ripen without any culture in the neighbourhood, and whose produce might bring a very good return, and satisfy the exigencies of domestic life. The mountainous fatherland of the Djemshidi has three special kinds of produce to which a genial Nature spontaneously gives birth, and which, belonging to no one, may be gathered by the hand of the first comer. These are:--(1) Pistachio nuts: (2) Buzgundj, a sort of nut used for dyeing: it is a produce of the pistachio tree. Of the former, a batman costs half a franc, and of the latter, from six to eight francs. (3) Terendjebin, a sort of sugary substance collected from a shrub like manna, having no bad flavour, and used in the making of sugar in Herat and Persia. The mountain Badkhiz (the word means 'where the wind rises') is rich in those three articles. The inhabitants are in the habit of collecting them, but the merchants, on account of the enormous subsequent charges, can only pay a small sum for them, and they thus afford but a sorry resource for the poor inhabitants. The Djemshidi women make several kinds of stuff of wool and goat's hair, and particularly a sort of cloth called Shal, which fetches good prices in Persia.